The other day I discussed
whether Chris Drury should be the player benched when the Rangers get their
missing forwards back. Nothing that has
happened in the games since has changed that view, rather even with increased
ice time in a blowout and last night
getting a chance to start on the third line have reinforced how far Drury’s
game has fallen. While I took a look at
Drury and his role for this season, Dave Shapiro, my boss at Blue Seat Blogs,
took a look at what the financial
costs and savings of a Drury buyout would be in terms of next year and
subsequent seasons.
Buying out Drury
during the summer of 2011 would result in a $3.7 million cap hit for the
2011-2012 season (saving the Rangers $3.35 million in cap space), and a $1.67
million cap hit for the 2012-2013 season, a season where Drury's initial
contract would have expired. The $3.35 million in cap space saved goes a long
way, especially considering Wade Redden and his $6.5 million cap hit will be on
the summer cap. During a summer when the Rangers will look to sign Brad
Richards, every dollar in cap space is important.
Dave went on in the article to correctly caution that
replacing the leadership skills that are continually talked about, penalty
killing and faceoffs are not easy to replace, as well as not to assume Brad
Richards wants to be in New York. While
leadership, faceoffs and penalty killing are all important characteristics to
winning clubs, they can be had for a much cheaper price than the current rate
of Drury. There is also the fact that
the Rangers have shown this season they can kill penalties without Drury in the
lineup. The team has had the advancement
of Dubinsky and Staal to go with Callahan as young leaders. The
reality is with what Drury is giving the Rangers he is Blair Betts at the rate
of a first line scorer,
I have been against buyouts in every situation in which they
have been brought up concerning Rangers players in the past as I do not like
the idea of paying for extra years on a contract to not even have a player on
the roster. This situation for me is
different. The fact that Drury only has
one year left makes paying a buyout over two seasons significantly more
feasible. The 3.35 million in savings is
crucial to the Rangers if they do want to complete the signing of Brad Richards
and bring back all their current RFA’s.
Based on the current cap of 59.4 million the Rangers are 15.7
million under the cap with 15 players under contract. The key restricted free agents that need new
contracts are: Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle, Artem Anisimov, Michael
Sauer and possibly Matt Gilroy. To have
signed those five players, Richards and likely two other contracts for 15.7
million seems very unrealistic to me. That additional 3.35 million makes it
significantly more reasonable to assume the possibility as 19 million as I
believe the main five restricted players will take approximately 10 million to
bring back.
The cap space and the desire to keep all the young talent
the Rangers have with expiring contracts has been my lone hesitation is terms
of getting on board with bringing in Brad Richards, but that extra money makes
the ability to pull it all off significantly higher. Combine those factors, the lack of top talent
in the 2012 free agent class and other money the Rangers have coming off the
cap to cover the 1.67 million they would pay on Drury for the extra season and
the move to buy him out strikes me as the right one both for the short and long
term health of the franchise.
